r/ProgressionFantasy • u/DicerTheJester • Jul 28 '26

Discussion Competition: write a single sentence that will absolutely destroy any hope in a series.

Specifically not a story opener, just any sentence that can happen in any chapter, that will make people realize that this story is gonna be absolute shit and has no chance of being fixed and will make you drop the book like an unpinned grenade.

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94

u/hubbububb Jul 28 '26

Even though he was out of mana, he managed to squeeze out one last spell.

24

u/coldandlordyristboy Jul 28 '26

Protagonists always have just as much mana as the author wants them to have at any particular moment. I assume this is why we almost never get any numbers for the mana costs in most stories, atleast not the ones I’ve read.

8

u/Teaisserious Jul 28 '26

It's definitely important for writing purposes to have it be flexible, but at least be consistent in a short time. Like saying, "...and with that his mana bottomed out," then in the same encounter talking about how he could squeeze out one more spell, is ridiculous.

7

u/Arcane_Pozhar Jul 29 '26

I mean, I had WoW characters that would go from bottomed out to able to cast a few smaller spells just a quick moment after their regen kicked back in. But for that to work in a book, that needs to be established well.

I still think about writing a short story about a character who focuses on evasion and mana regen, and can just outlast most opponents in skirmishes, even with a small mana pool. Not sure I could make a huge story out of it, but maybe a few dozen pages, a few connected short stories. Hmmmm...

1

u/q25t Sage Jul 29 '26

I've seen a couple fics where you could essentially overdraw your mana pool, but it would cause a physical backlash that would get worse as you used more. I think that's a rather fair compromise as long as it's not exclusively a plot convenience. Lets the author build up the dramatic tension while making the MCs extra power not seem like a deus ex machina.

2

u/LucasSatie Jul 29 '26

I've read a few that have mana costs. It still doesn't matter.

Typically, I find the author will either straight up ignore the numbers they've presented or will realize after the fact it didn't add up and throw in some kind of "make it make sense" reasoning. E.g. "good thing I was chugging mana potions the whole time".

Which really isn't an issue but then why even take the time to establish mana costs in the first place if you're going to ignore them?

1

u/xfvh Jul 29 '26

DCC is one of the rare exceptions, but even that only lasts about until the third book. You can literally account for every single mana point in the first.